A meta-analytic review of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire

The current paper presents a meta-analytic review of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ), which consists of fifteen subscales designed from classic social–cognitive learning theories and which is widely used to predict academic performance. Results based on 2158 correlations from 67 independent samples and 19,900 college students indicate that the subscales of the MSLQ vary in their utility for predicting grades, with grade-related validities ranging from ρ = .40 for the subscale measuring students' effort regulation to ρ = .05 for the subscale measuring students' help-seeking behaviors. Factor-analyses of the meta-analytic intercorrelations broadly support the theoretical structure of the MSLQ. Alteration or elimination of items with undesirable psychometric characteristics could potentially both augment empirical support for the theoretical structure of the MSLQ and strengthen its subscales' predictive utility for academic performance.

Research highlights
► MSLQ subscales exhibit range of validities for academic performance.
► MLSQ subscale validities higher for grades in classes than overall GPA.
► MSLQ subscale intercorrelations suggest some measurement redundancy.
► Some MSLQ items have psychometrically problematic content.
► Findings broadly supportive of social–cognitive learning theories.